Province’s top Doctor says long term care residents ill with COVID-19 can be taken to hospital

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer stressed there is no directive given to long term care facilities with regards to blocking COVID-19 positive residents from being sent to the hospital.

Dr. David Williams says more intensive screening is in place and there is a more heightened concern, but if it is necessary and following the directive of the overseeing facility and physician, residents of long term care facilities who tested positive for COVID-19 are able to be taken to hospital for more intensive care.

Dr. Williams also addressed the timeline for which physical distancing measures would be in place, warning that as we enter this second 2-week period, we need to remember that when it comes to rolling back on these preventative measures, we must be wary not to roll back too soon. He says we saw it previously happen with the SARS outbreak, where we started easing up on the measures and then the second wave of infections arose almost as fast.

Dr. Williams said that the province is looking at ensuring that human healthcare resources called upon to deal with the sudden surge in demand are properly fitted with the required skill set to deal with this kind of disease, this following the Minister of Health’s confirmation that the federal government is calling on retired health care workers to return to the job as well accelerating the graduation of medical students close to the end of their program.

He said we mostly need to ensure communication and information are being well documented and updated across all platforms as such it becomes crucial to know how to document and implement their staff and volunteers, to make sure the right thing is being done the right way.